Don't Forget
by Hematite
Summary: Jack decides to return to Mineral Town, the place where his grandfather died, but is kidnapped on the way by the Black Magician and finds himself in a completely different place with his memories erased..
1. Chapter 1

**Don't Forget**

Note: Sorry about the long exposition. The next chapter will be more interesting, I promise.

* * *

I was born in the exact center of the city where my parents lived. For years the mayor had contractors carefully measuring every border of the city so that a hospital could be built at the exact center of it. And so a perfectly circular building was erected right on the middle of the city, and the exact center of one floor of it was a birthing suite. This was where I was born. It was in this city that I lived until the Black Magician stole my memories.  
My parents christened me "Jack", simply because they wanted a name easy to remember and spell. It was easy enough to spell, but as I always faded into the background wherever I went, it wasn't so easy to remember. Many times during my schooling, people would stop to ask me what my name was. Sure, some people remembered, a girl here or there, and of course, my friends (though I did not have so many, I was close to the ones I did have) but teachers were a lost cause. It's hard to remember someone's name when that someone does not like to talk very much, or give self introductions. Often people would start to remember my name toward the end of the school year, but by then it was a lost cause: summer would come, and inevitably a new year would start, and the process would begin again.  
I never saw my friends during the summer. During the summer I went to my grandfather's farm, and miraculously every villager there could remember my name. From Joanna, the beautiful older girl who lived a couple of farms down the road, to Zack, the handler of shipments, every single inhabitant of Mineral Town knew my name.  
This was a foreign concept to me. It startled me every time to hear "Hello, Jack, how are you doing today?" or "Hi Jack! I found a great spot on the mountain, do you want to go play?"  
The very first time I visited my grandfather was when I was only two years old. Before then, he had always come to visit me (according to my mother, anyways; I was too small to remember anything), but he became busy with the farm after my grandmother, his wife, passed away. Although the atmosphere was clearly very heavy in the village (we were attending the funeral) I could tell, even as a toddler, how close everyone was. Naturally I didn't know it at the time, but some of these children would become my best friends.  
There was Gray, with his Grandpa Saibara, and there was Elli and her Grandma Ellen, and her mother and father. There was Mayor Thomas, quite a bit slimmer in those days, with his big red nose not quite so.. big, or red. There was his son Harris, who had already found an excuse to stand next to Aja although the villagers had only started gathering a couple of minutes ago. There was the kindly old priest, feeble in his advanced age, but his voice clear and strong as he said a few words for my grandma. I hadn't much of an idea what was going on, as I never really knew my grandmother; her bad arthritis and rheumatism kept her from leaving the farm much. But when I saw some of the other children crying, I started to too.  
After the procession, my parents and I stayed in the village for a couple of weeks. My parents had to get back to work. My grandfather offered to keep me for the summer, and though my mother was uneasy about this proposition, my father assured her that "the country air would be good for the boy" and so I stayed, and so I returned every summer. As I got older I got to know the other kids in the village better.  
I learned that Gray lived in a city not far from mine, and that he, too, visited his grandfather during the summer. I learned that Elli had lived here with her parents and grandparents all her life, but that she had gone to the city once. "I went to the aquarium!" she had told me excitedly, one summer. "I liked it a lot. There were seahorses!"  
In particular, however, there was one girl who had been extremely close to me. We would play together every day, no matter what the weather was like. In addition to our usual escapades (teasing the chickens, teasing the cows, pretending to be wilderness explorers in Grandpa's fields upon fields of grass and corn and tomatoes, getting chased by the chickens, getting chased by the cows) we also ate almost all of our meals together, and went to every summer festival together.  
In a cruel twist of fate, it was I who could not remember her name.  
Not when we were together, of course. I remembered when we were together. But abruptly she moved away when I was seven. Something about her father going to do research elsewhere, somewhere where there were more trees and grasses and fruits. Somewhere where there were more animals, more bugs, more minerals and rocks. Somewhere even more remote than Mineral Town. "Promise me you'll never forget about me," she had said, the summer before she left. I thought it was a weird thing to ask, but I promised her anyways.  
The next summer, she was gone.  
Oh, the other children were still there, and the cows and the chickens were still there, but it just wasn't the same. I was depressed the entire summer because of her absence. But as time went by, the wounds healed, and gradually I simply became closer to the other kids. Sometimes I would ask them, "What happened to her?" but the reply was always the same: she moved away, and just never came back. Letters never came from her, nor any word about where she was or what she was doing with her family. Gray became my new best friend, and we spent many a summer lazing about in the warm summer sunshine. Over time, I forgot about that girl. I forgot her name.  
When I was fifteen my grandfather went to join my grandmother in Heaven. "May the Harvest Goddess bless his soul," said Carter, the new priest. The old feeble one had passed away, too, a couple of summers ago, and here Carter was to replace him. I liked Carter. He always had a Fruit Latte for me when I went to visit, and always one for Gray too.  
And of course, when my grandfather left this world for a better one, so my visits ended too. I kept in touch with Gray, as I could always call him when he was in the city, but the rest of the villagers did not have such a luxury as a cellular phone, and so in my mind they, like the girl, faded out of existence.

My days passed uneventfully until I turned eighteen. Well, actually, more accurately it would be "until I graduated from high school." Oh, sure, over the summer sometimes I would visit Gray, or he would visit me, and occasionally we would go on trips together, but all this had to be done before he left for Mineral Town or after he returned. But otherwise I found my life to be somewhat empty and unfulfilled. At school most people did not remember my name, and those who did slowly drifted apart from me. "You're different now, Jack," they would say, "but I can't quite place my finger on why." Eventually all of my friends found new friends, and we only acknowledged each other with simple nods as we passed each other in the hallway. I found, however, that I didn't quite mind the solitude that my quietness gave me. Life was much quieter and simpler and just so much more peaceful in Mineral Town; I was surprised to discover how much I missed it.  
And so when I graduated from high school, I did not go to college, as my parents had so wanted me to do, but instead persuaded them to allow me to spend a year in Mineral Town. I felt slightly guilty about having asked them to do so, but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I would never forgive myself if I didn't go. I didn't know it then, but my life would soon be changed forever, and I would not reach Mineral Town until several years had passed.

We mailed most of my belongings to Mineral Town; as it was understood that I would be staying in my grandfather's farmhouse, we sent no furniture. Most of my clothes were shipped to the town, although I had some items with me in a carry-on bag for the train. My parents were busy with work and could not afford the time to send me. I think they were secretly glad to be rid of me for a year, although I'm sure the money they gave me to live off of for a year was a considerable chunk out of their salaries. My parents both worked, you know; my mother was a secretary for the company that my father worked at. That's where they met, actually, even though dating fellow employees was (and still is) strictly forbidden.  
The train stopped at the base of a small mountain. There wasn't much of a station there, just an automated ticket selling machine and a deserted platform. Nobody had come to meet me, although I suppose that was understandable since I had essentially lost contact with all of the villagers save Gray. I think I would have come with him, on the ferry, and in hindsight it would have done me well to have done so. But, the train was just the slightest bit cheaper than the ferry, although the journey took much longer this way. While the ferry could take me straight to the shores of Mineral Town, the train had to wind around to the bridge across the river that emptied into the ocean, and then through the thick forest to the base of the mountain. But it was an old train, and an uncomfortable one, and so tickets were cheap and plentiful. At any rate, it was the train that my parents had chosen for me to take, and so that is exactly what I did.  
After I left the station I had to walk through Forget-Me-Not Valley and up Mother's Hill (although I always insisted it was a small mountain. You just don't see a rocky peak like that on a hill, hills are supposed to be grassy and soft. Whenever someone assured me that it was indeed a hill, after all it was right there in the name, Mother's Hill, I would assure them right back that it was a mountain, thank you very much, hills just aren't that steep or rocky.) and on the other side I could already catch faint glimpses of Mineral Town. In fact I was so excited I dropped my bag, right there at the top, and yelled, "Hello, Mineral Town!"  
"Well hello to you," somebody said. I jumped and turned, for the voice had come from right behind me (even though I hadn't seen anyone at all when I was hiking up). The somebody was a young man, perhaps a couple of years older than me, about Gray's age. He definitely had a strange air to him, I thought, and of course his long black robe and his sleek black hair didn't help his case much. But there was more to his strangeness to that. Perhaps it was his glassless glasses, or the way his eyes seemed just a little too bright. Or maybe it was his pointed nose, or the grin on his face that didn't seem to contain any joy at all.  
At the bottom of the mountain, hill, whatever, I could see Gray hiking up. I suppose he had heard me yell, he was probably waiting for me out at the farm or maybe in front of Gotz's house. I wished he would hurry up.  
"Oh, um, hello," I said to the man, rather uncomfortably.  
"Are you visiting Mineral Town?" he asked, pushing the frames of his glassless glasses up the bridge of his nose. He stared at me, as if he were expecting something. I still don't know what he was expecting.  
"Yes," I said, not wanting to say any more.  
"Not much of a talker, are you? May I ask you about your business here?"  
"I'm just visiting,"  
"Visiting whom, may I ask?"  
"Well... just.. everyone, I suppose," I didn't want to go into specifics. As you have probably gathered by now, this man was just downright creepy, and I didn't like it. Or him. Gray was quickly approaching, and silently I prayed for his feet to carry him even faster.  
"Interesting," said the man. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Black Magician, and I have been looking for a town like this for years. Do you understand? I can't allow anybody to taint it. There can be no outside influences. I have to conduct my experiments in the most isolated area I can find, the most isolated inhabited area, actually. I suppose that doesn't make much sense to you."  
"Well, no, it doesn't really, because how can-"  
"How can an inhabited area be isolated? Well my point is that I don't want outsiders like you, outsiders who have not been here for years and years, to come and ruin everything I've worked so hard to build." Although that certainly did seem to be his point, it didn't answer my question at all. I thought it best to hold my tongue, however, and today I know that decision to be quite wise. The Black Magician rather dislikes sassing.  
"So I am dreadfully sorry but you are going to have to go. And it seems that I have unwittingly talked a little bit too much about my plans, and so your memory is going to have to go too. Please don't ask me for any more specifics, you are going to ruin my plans in more ways than one, and I planned to start today, you know, but because of you now I have to start later, because I am going to have to get rid of you. Although I suppose that being delayed for a day is better than being delayed for a year, which is what would have happened had I allowed you to pass here and go down into there."  
'But I didn't ask you for any specifics,' I thought. 'What a strange guy. I don't follow his train of thought at all.' Gray was almost at the top now, and he was sprinting. I suppose the man gave him a bad feeling, too.  
The man pulled a long wooden staff out from somewhere, I don't know where, because I could see no place that he had to put it. It seemed as if he had been carrying it strapped to his back, but surely I would have seen it if he had. So, I will assume he had cast some sort of magic on it... a magic that allowed him to store his staff in thin air. "Good bye, Jack," he said, smiling wider so that I could see fangs where his canines should have been.  
"How did you know my-"  
Gray had just reached the scene. But it was too late; he could not stop the man in time from putting his staff on my head and pulling out all of my memories, he could not stop the man from chanting his spells and pulling out the beams of light from my head and condensing them into a spherical blue rock. All he could do was helplessly watch as his friend crumpled to the ground, only to be carried off by the Black Magician deep into a grove of trees.


	2. Chapter 2

I awoke with a start. Where was I?

More importantly, who was I?

Naturally at the time I had no way of knowing, but all of my memories were locked inside that beautiful blue orb that the Black Magician had taken from me. Well, not all of them, I suppose; I still had knowledge of the basic things surrounding me. For example, I still knew what was edible and what was not, and I still knew how to speak and understand the language of my hometown. Wherever that was. And although I didn't know exactly where my hometown was, I somehow knew that it was very, very, far from where I was. From 'here'. Well, actually, I was very, very, far away from any city at all, and no matter which way I turned, no matter which way I looked, all I could see was mile upon mile of trees.

I shrugged and picked a direction. If I walked long enough and far enough, I was sure to get out of that forest, right?

This proved to be much more difficult than I had anticipated. For days I walked in as straight a line as I could, passing by trees, trees, and more trees. There was not a single sign of a person anywhere, and there was no sign of any food around me. I found this strange, as forests normally contained some form of edible thing, right? But I saw no mushrooms, no wild berries, or edible grasses at all. Every once in a while, though, I would come across a pool of water, and these pools of water would sometimes contain small fish. Pond smelt. Try as I might, though, there was no way I could catch these small and slippery fish with my bare hands. 'I need a fishing pole,' I would think to myself, then gaze woefully at the seemingly endless forest. During these times I always lost heart. You can have all the water in the world but what good is it if you can't get any food out of it? Surely, in a month or so, I would perish.

But there was no sense in wasting away by a pool of water. I could lament all I wanted to later, but for the time being I had to find a way out of this damned forest. I walked for days and days, mile upon mile upon mile (or so it felt) without seeing a single soul. But sometimes I would hear a quiet unsettling rustling of leaves, an ethereal giggle here or there denoting the presence of a young girl. Sometimes I would hear a low growling, barely detectable, but present. These small noises disturbed me, but it was the near constant silence that disturbed me more: at least the small noises gave me hope of the possibility of surviving in this Godforsaken forest.

It wasn't until much later that I realized there were no birds in the forest. Normally when I walk through a forest, I don't pay much attention to birds or their chirping, but without them an eerie silence pervaded my surroundings. After I had been lost for perhaps a week, it was hard to say, it never got dark in the forest, I would occasionally catch glimpses of bright orange hair between the trees, or hear faint echoes of the girl's voice. "Promise you won't forget about me," she often said. "But you already have, haven't you?" If I could muster the strength to I would turn and call to her. "I've never forgotten about you!" I would say. "I just.. I just forgot your name, is all. But it could happen to anyone, I'm sure, hell I don't remember my own name.." and then I would stop. Who was I talking to? Whoever it was I _had_ forgotten them. Just as I had forgotten myself.

Every time, the forest would stay resolutely and stubbornly silent.

As the forest never darkened I had no way of telling when it should have been night. Thus I never knew when to rest, and although this may seem silly to you, I would often just keep walking until I was forced to rest. By "forced to rest" I mean I kept walking until I just up and collapsed. What else could I have done? But these blank spaces of rest were the worst. The silence always closed in on me then, surrounding me, pressing down on me, suffocating me. It was during one of these exhausting times that I collapsed onto a bush.

"Hey there!" it said gruffly. I jumped back, startled. "That ain't cool, you know? How would you like it if I fell on top of you?"  
"I.. I'm very sorry," I replied, not entirely sure of the best way to go about apologizing to a bush or why I was apologizing to it in the first place.  
"It's alright, I guess you couldn't have known I had a mind of my own," the bush mumbled, rustling its leaves. "But you should really respect all living creatures. I suppose you're lost?"  
"Oh, well, um, as a matter of fact, I am very lost."  
"Of course you are, boy! And I'll tell you why. You're trying to go in one direction, aren't you? You're thinking, 'If I walk for long enough in one direction I'll get out of this damned place eventually,' right?"  
"Yes, how did you know?" I couldn't find the energy to be surprised anymore. I was just tired, and famished, and I didn't know what to make of this talking bush.  
"Well forget about it! It's not going to work!" the bush shouted, and I'm sure that if he was able to jump he would have.  
"It's not?" I was taken aback. Finding out that what you've been doing for the past week is useless will do that to you.  
"Of course it's not! You know what? _You're actually going in a circle right now_. This forest is, in reality, just a big illusion! It's not a great big old forest at all. In fact, it's a pretty damn tiny forest guarded by the Illusionist."  
"The Illusionist?"  
"Yes you stupid boy, the Illusionist. That's what I said, didn't I? Listen to what I'm saying before you go opening your stupid mouth, okay? Now, you see, in order to shatter this illusion and get the hell out of here, you are going to have to defeat the Illusionist. Kill him or just knock him out if you're just that much of a pansy, but just render him unable to use his magic and you'll be free to go."  
I thought about what the bush said. It made sense, but something still struck me as odd. "How come I didn't realize I was going in circles, then?"  
The bush rustled its leaves impatiently. "There are bushes everywhere, don't you see? And there are trees everywhere, don't you see? Of course you're not going to recognize the fact that you're going around in circles because it all looks the same to you, anyways! Besides, that is the Illusionist's power. It certainly _feels _like you're going in a straight line, but the Illusionist is really just generating an illusion to trick you into thinking that way. He's pretty good at that."  
"And the never getting dark? Is that part of it too?"  
"Obviously."  
"Wait, but if everything is an illusion, I'm never going to find the Illusionist! I'm going to be stuck here forever!"  
"Be patient, that's what I'm going to tell you. When you get up to leave, take three steps forward and say this: revertor reverti reversus. This will enable you to see the Illusionist. Unfortunately he will hear you if you say any magical words too loudly so just whisper it as softly as you can and hope for the best."  
"Okay, well, that's jolly good and all but how am I supposed to take this guy on in a fight? I'm not exactly in top physical condition here, in case you haven't noticed."  
The bush shrugged with its branches. "Well, he's a magician, and magicians are notoriously weak. Just rest up and go after him and I'm sure you'll figure something out."  
Well that was just great. I hadn't a clue.  
"Anyways," the bush continued, "Just go to sleep for now and rest up. Oh wait! You'll need this." His branches shook briefly and out flew a glowing white rock. I picked it up; it was about as small as a marble and just as round. "Press this to your forehead."  
I did so and instantly a curious warmth spread over me. The soreness dissolved from my body and suddenly the hunger did not seem quite so unbearable. "My God," I said to the bush. "What in the world is this?"  
"It is concentrated magical energy. By using this, you will temporarily be able to use magic spells and your physical abilities will be slightly boosted."  
"Slightly? Man, I feel great! If this is slightly then I want to see really!" I jogged in place. "I could run for miles!"  
"Don't overdo it," the bush warned. "Time will not erode your new power but activity certainly will! Now rest, you'll need it to take on the Illusionist -"  
"I feel great!" I repeated, cutting him off, incensing him. "I'm going to go and take out that Illusionist right now!"  
"NO!" the bush roared, but his warning fell on deaf ears. I walked three steps forward and whispered "revertor reverti reversus" under my breath and suddenly I could hear a sound like the breaking of a large glass mirror. I trotted away from the bush a ways before calling over my shoulder, "Thank you so much!"  
"Who are you thanking?" the bush muttered. "I am merely a figment of your imagination."

It didn't occur to me then, but if he was just a figment of my imagination, how did he know so much, and how did he get that magical energy?

I raced around the forest. Without the illusion in place I saw how small it really was and I could see the outskirts of the forest with ease, although when I tried to leave a barrier kept me inside. I had to defeat the Illusionist first.

I looked about wildly, sweat beading on my brow, my hair whipping about as I turned this way and that, and sure enough I could hear a dull and low chanting coming from my left side. I set off in the direction and in what felt like half a minute I had already reached the mysterious Illusionist. Although he was facing me, he was so lost in thought he did not notice me creep around him and then to his backside. Cloaked in all black with a gold bordered white half mask on his face, the Illusionist was definitely a very elegant man. His white-blonde hair was the precise opposite of the Black Magician's, but even so it was somehow obvious for whom this Illusionist worked for.

I crouched down and came across a medium sized rock. As quietly as I could, I picked it up and smashed it down on the back of his head. He crumpled to the ground, the spell temporarily broken. I dashed towards the edge of the forest as fast as my legs could manage, the ground flew past under my feet and I ran and I ran and I ran and then..  
"Oof!" The barrier was still up. Try as I might, I could not get past it. 'But the Illusionist, he...'

"I have to give you credit," a deep voice came from behind me. "For just a split second the barrier was lifted. But you were just too soft, just not quite ruthless enough and here I am."

I spun around. The Illusionist, one hand on the back of his head, where blood was matting his white-blond hair, limped towards me. He held in his hands a large gold staff, which he lifted high above his head while he chanted. Magical energy gathered around the end of the staff, which he could swirl around in the air. I backed away, almost completely paralyzed with fear. His eyes glowed white for an instant as he released his spell.

"Dear, oh dear, I was aiming for your heart," he remarked. I was puzzled, if he didn't hit my heart, then what was it that he hit? I looked down and screamed; my arm was completely bloodied. Upon seeing this I panicked, sure the Illusionist would kill me right then and there. But then I remembered what the bush had told me: "_Magicians are notoriously weak." _While the Illusionist prepared his next shot, I ducked down and punched him as hard as I could in the stomach. The Illusionist gasped and fell down; taking this opportunity I began to kick him, stomp on him, trying to find all the ways I could to incapacitate the man. And yet I still could not find the will in me to kill him. While he lay on the ground I ran away from the dreadful forest, farther and farther I went until I could not see it anymore when I looked behind me.

Three days passed and now I had no food _or _water. I hadn't the slightest clue about what to do, and the magic that the bush gave me had worn off. "So... tired... I can't go on any longer.." I muttered as I collapsed onto the ground in front of a small house. A girl ran out of the door.

"My goodness, are you okay?"

I squinted up at her and then at her house. A sign in front of it read, "Welcome to Kardia! Population: 28".

Kardia? Where in the world was I?


End file.
